🔗 Share this article

This recent season, I was caught in congested traffic on the scorching streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat advised a right turn toward a famous spot for bouillabaisse. Yet, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Weary and overheated, I heeded the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a roadwork site.

A seemingly trivial event, perhaps. But one that encapsulates a central question of our era, where technology touches nearly every facet of our lives: who gets our trust more – fellow humans and our personal instincts, or the algorithm?

The Enlightenment's Promise and Our Modern Relapse

The renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed immaturity." This immaturity, he wrote, "represents the inability to use one's personal reason without guidance from another." For ages, that directing force for human thought was frequently the priest, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to speak for God's voice. To explain phenomena like volcanic eruptions, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the fabric of society, from commerce to matters of the heart, faith served as the main compass.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your reason!”

Kant argued that humans always possessed the ability to think rationally. They simply lacked the confidence to employ it. With revolutions in America and France, a new dawn arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the intellect, freed from authority, would become the engine of progress and a better world.

Now, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are slipping back into a form of intellectual immaturity. An app dictating a direction is just one example. AI risks becoming our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our decisions and behaviors. We are in danger of relinquishing the historically earned courage to reason for ourselves – and this time, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Swift Adoption and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT debuted a mere three years ago, and yet a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had used AI in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on ending a relationship or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to algorithms for guidance. Research suggests a large majority of user queries concern personal life matters. Even more striking than our reliance on AI for judgment is what happens when we allow it express for us. Writing is now one of the most common uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The celebrated American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research suggests the answer may be affirmative. A study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the cognitive activity of essay writers who had access to AI, traditional search engines, or no aids. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had trouble accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most concerning was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group became progressively lazier, copying entire blocks of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Certainly, AI's attraction stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to offload accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposed that the rise of fascism could be partly explained by a human tendency to give up personal freedom in exchange for the reassuring certainty of subordination. AI offers a modern method of surrendering the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Black Box Problem: Faith Over Reason

AI's primary draw is its capacity to perform tasks beyond our minds – analyzing oceans of data at lightning pace. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I chose to trust the app over my companion (a decision she interpreted as an affront). With access to real-time information, surely the app must know best – or so I thought.

The fundamental problem is that AI operates as a opaque system. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp the process behind its decisions – even its programmers admit this. Nor can we verify its reasoning against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's recommendation, we are not being guided by reason. We are back in the realm of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our future credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a powerful tool for humanity in scientific pursuit. It can help inventing drugs, liberate us from "bullshit jobs", or manage administrative chores – duties that demand little thought and are unfulfilling. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not advocate for reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about productivity – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and fallible, but it forces us to debate, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the boundaries of our own understanding. It fosters confidence, both individually and as a society. For Kant, the use of reason was never only about information; it was about empowering people to become authors of their own lives, and to resist control. It was about building a ethical society based on the shared principle of reason and debate, rather than unquestioning acceptance.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we leverage its promise of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our century. It is a question we would do well not to outsource to the algorithm.